Crush aim for staying power in tough Calgary pro basketball market

Crush player Kelvin Dela Pena — a former Mount Royal Cougars star — is a big part of the local flavour.Stuart Gradon
/ Calgary Herald

Calgary Crush head coach Eddie Richardson III is a former SAIT Trojans player and is well known in the local hoops community with his club program, Genesis Basketball.Stuart Gradon
/ Calgary Herald

Joseph Atangana takes part in practice with the Calgary Crush at SAIT last Sunday.Stuart Gradon
/ Calgary Herald

Coach Eddie Richardson III and Crush brass are hoping the increased focus on stocking their roster with local players will help endear the franchise to the Calgary market.Stuart Gradon
/ Calgary Herald

The people behind the Calgary Crush — the city’s newest attempt at professional basketball — truly love the game and wholeheartedly believe in their product which is, perhaps, where other outfits have failed before them.

“People are saying, ‘You guys are going to last a season and you’ll be gone,’ ” team owner Sal Rashidian was saying the other day, referring to the common opinion shared by Calgary’s naysayers which have seen three pro franchises come and go over the years. “My response to that is: we’re a local team with local players and we’d hope for them to come out and support us. But we can understand if they don’t either.

“We’re not here to make money on this thing — we’re here to bring basketball back to our community.”

So, starting next weekend with a pair of home games (Friday at 7 p.m. and Saturday at 1 p.m.) at the SAIT gymnasium against the Washington Rampage, they are giving it their best shot.

The team, which had quietly formed last year and competed in an exhibition schedule, is made up of players between the ages of 23 and 30 years old with a variety of experience at the CIS and professional levels.

“We want to make our program one where student-athletes, when they finish their basketball at the U of C or SAIT or anywhere else in Canada, can come play with us and have an opportunity to get overseas contracts,” Rashidian said. “That’s our vision.”

For their inaugural year, they wanted to look in-house for talent. The current Crush roster includes guard John Riad and six-foot-eight forward Chris Wright, who are both alumni of the University of Calgary Dinos program and have played overseas in Denmark and Germany, respectively. Keenan Milburn spent time at U of C and with SAIT, and Moe Abdallah, Kelvin Dela Pena, and Kelly Lundgren all used to play for Mount Royal.

Also on the roster are Calgarians Duncan Milne, who played for Guelph and in Australia and Romania, and Jermaine Campbell, who played at the University of Ottawa and for the Portland Chinooks of the International Basketball League.

Which was the intent, of course — the more local faces, the better.

“I’ve sat down with (Rashidian) and have had some great talks and great chats about what we want to do,” said head coach Eddie Richardson III, a former SAIT Trojans player and owner of a local club program, Genesis Basketball. “We’re going to do it a lot differently than anyone has ever done it. We want to make sure we get the community involved and we want to support the community with some local guys, adding some talented import players here and there.

“I believe that will help us succeed where others haven’t succeeded in the past.”

The club has a 16-game docket for their inaugural season in American Basketball Association’s Pacific Northwest Division, including 12 home games, and will compete against the Kitsap Admirals, Olympia Rise, Seattle Mountaineers, and Lakewood Panthers.

To make life simple, they only have one road-trip scheduled this season from Jan. 11 through Jan. 13, heading to Bremerton, Renton, and Olympia in Washington. The dangling carrot at the end of the season is playing for the ABA championship, while the winner of their loop also earns a trip to China to showcase the ABA.

But questions regarding the sport at a professional level and its sustainability in the city are understandable considering the past. Some teams didn’t even make it until the end of the season.

The Calgary 88’s played out of the Saddledome from 1988 to 1992 in the World Basketball League, which was a height-restricted loop only permitting players under six-foot-five. The league folded before the 1992 season completed.

The Calgary Outlaws competed in the Canada-based National Basketball League which lasted one and a half seasons in 1993 and 1994.

Then, there were the Calgary Drillers, who briefly played in the ABA at the Stampede Corral during the 2004-05 season, also during an NHL lockout.

“I think it’s time,” Richardson said. “The Calgary 88’s were around and did fairly well. A lot of people still remember them. The Drillers came and went about it a different route. They didn’t do it properly in terms of local talent and local players. They brought in a lot of players that nobody has ever heard of. Calgary, when you’re in a hockey market, the basketball community wants to see guys they’ve cheered for in the past that they can relate, too.”

Details of compensation are still being ironed out for the club, but Richardson said other teams use methods like profit-sharing or salary to pay their players. Tickets are cheap; $10 for adults and $5 for students and children. According to Rashidian, who owns three Dominoes Pizza franchises in the city, operating an ABA franchise is upwards of $250,000, including franchise fees, referees, and sponsorship.

But it’s the local concept that may be the most appealing for fans.

“It starts out small and creates an advantage, right?” said U of C head coach Dan Vanhooren, weighing in on the subject of professional basketball ion Calgary. “Because, hey, John Riad’s playing or Chris Wright is playing. They’re local guys that a lot of people know in the city. So, when they play in town, you want to make the effort to go watch them play. I think that draws more people locally, for sure. Local coaching is positive. They’re playing out of SAIT and to make it exciting and fun, you only need a couple thousand people there.

“It can be positive and exciting because it’s not too big, too early.”

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